


A Window in Your Heart

by AnnetheCatDetective



Series: Is This Love I'm Feeling [3]
Category: St. Elsewhere
Genre: Episode Related, Gen, Grief/Mourning, for Newheart- again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-11 03:16:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17438906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: Jack's POV for 'It's a Heartache'.





	A Window in Your Heart

Home doesn’t feel like home… everything’s empty, everything’s…

 

He wishes he was back at St. Eligius, wishes he was around people, wishes… There’s no sense in wishing. Nina’s gone. He still can’t believe Nina’s gone. And now it’s just him and Pete, and he did okay a little while, taking care of him, but once Pete went down for some sleep, and he was alone with his thoughts…

 

He’s been sent home alone with his grief when there’s a knock on the door. He’s as glad at the thought of having someone else around as he thinks he’s capable of being. He wants company, he’s not up for company… he doesn’t know. He doesn’t want to be like this around people, hollow and hazy, but he doesn’t want to be alone. Whenever Pete needs him, it’s like he’s alive again, he’s somebody, he’s Daddy and life has meaning. When he’s being looked at and wanted, things are okay, or almost okay. And then he puts Pete down to let him sleep, he needs so much sleep, and it’s like…

 

He doesn’t know who he is anymore. He doesn’t know  _ if _ he is anymore. 

 

The idea of pulling himself together enough to answer the door, to have someone see him here, in this empty home, this place of grief… the idea of having to be a person here at home is exhausting in a way that being around people at the hospital isn’t, at the hospital as with Pete he is who he needs to be, there's no pressure to live for himself or know himself, but the idea of not being alone is worth going to the door. And it could be Peter, or Myra. It could be a neighbor checking on him, or one of Nina’s friends…A lot of people it might be who he'd want to be able to speak to a moment, who knows the hole she left in the world.  


 

He opens the door to Victor Ehrlich, which is unexpected. He’d wanted to see him… and then he hadn’t been able to. Not after Dr. Craig stopped him outside the OR and he'd felt so turned around, he'd felt so turned around since he got the news and it only got worse at Porter General, until by the time he reached their own OR he just couldn't keep himself straight much. He can’t imagine that even if Phil told Victor Jack had been looking for him, that alone would propel him to come here. He can’t imagine why Victor would come to his home, why he wouldn’t just call, or wait to see him at work again, unless this is because they sent him home from work and maybe it’s okay if he comes back, or maybe one of his patients, maybe someone needs him. The thought of being needed helps him drag himself out of the fog he’s in, but he still feels sluggish. He still feels like he's trudging through molasses, like some part of him's in hibernation.  


 

“Ehrlich… What, what did you need, is it work?”

 

“What? No-- No, of course not, I-- “ Victor sputters a little. He’s clutching a pair of tupperware containers to his chest, Jack takes those in, and the paper grocery bag between his feet, but those things don’t make sense to him, either. It’s all just random detail in a world that stopped making sense. “Look. I know I’m not the best when it comes to tact. And I know there’s nothing I can say that-- that would be very comforting. And I thought that if I tried, I’d probably mess it all up. So I just brought food and I’m going to keep my big mouth shut! There’s a fruit salad, and a pasta salad. No olives!”

 

Food. He’d brought food. He’d remembered that Jack didn’t eat his olives, that Nina did, it had been the… the stupidest conversation, really, the littlest thing, and Victor remembered that, and it’s all Jack can do not to start crying. 

 

The last meal he thinks he ate was a piece of white bread and then, separately, a handful of lunch meat. He hadn’t tasted it. 

 

“I appreciate it.” He nods, ushering Victor inside. He picks up his grocery bag and shuffles in, looks around. He’s all nervous energy, and Jack’s got no energy at all, and he’s not sure which is worse, really. He’s used to not having energy when it’s from work, he could handle that, it’s just this… it’s his emotions exhausting him now, that’s what makes it so awful. He could sleep eight hours and wake up feeling just as dead.

 

“And Chandler said you were looking for me, but by the time he told me, I couldn’t find you and I heard you were supposed to be home…” Victor continues. “And I was-- I thought I should bring food over. I almost made pasta primavera, except it would need to be heated back up. Oh, I should have, though, that’s more comforting, I should have made something hot…”

 

Trying to keep up with him is just a little too much, here and now, the way Jack is feeling, all he can do is let Victor sort of wash over him, and do his best to pick out the important pieces of information.

 

“I wouldn’t have heated it up. I’ll get you your containers back at work once I’ve washed them, thanks.” He promises, getting it put away. He can’t really picture himself doing anything more complicated than shoving a few bites of something into his mouth while standing over the sink. Anything else is too much effort when he doesn’t feel like eating, when he doesn’t… when he doesn’t  _ enjoy _ anything, when she’s not there.

 

“You can bring them back dirty.” Victor shakes his head, before remembering the bag he’d brought in. “Oh! And-- I just-- I bought formula, because I guess-- I mean, you can’t feed a baby pasta salad, and I didn’t know if you needed-- and while I was doing that, I bought diapers, just in case. Just in case with everything, so you wouldn’t run out of anything, with the baby.”

 

He hadn’t even expected food, he hadn’t expected anything, but this… this is too much. Formula, diapers, and Victor didn’t need to do anything…

 

But then, maybe he did get that sense of kinship. Maybe he does, and that’s why he’s here, or maybe he would do this for anyone, and it seems… it seems painfully unfair, all of a sudden, for Victor to be so nice, for no one to see this side of him beyond the clumsy attempts at being one of the guys, the social gaffes, the loud shirts. For him to just show up like this and do this, something about it warms him, when he’d thought nothing much could, and something about it hurts. And it's not like Jack would have asked this of anybody, it's not that he's touched that he didn't ask and Victor did this anyway, it's that he didn't... he didn't say anything, and he doesn't think anyone else did, if this had been a conversation they had had without him, it wouldn't be only Victor. It's that Victor thought about what he might need for Pete, that Victor came out of surgery and heard Jack wanted him and didn't see him at St. Eligius and then just decided to do all of this for him. And it doesn't seem _strange_. Even if Victor went some extra mile out of a sense of kinship, he believes Victor would do what he could for anybody who needed him, and he doesn't really know how he feels. He feels something, about the fact that Victor knew not to put olives in the pasta salad, that even if Jack didn't mind eating them in the end, having them there would hurt.   


 

“You didn’t have to do this. Thank you.” He says softly, looking down a moment. 

 

“Well I… It’s just what people do, I mean, bringing stuff, and-- Food, I mean.” Victor says, and maybe it’s what people do, but no one else has done it for him. “And Chandler said you wanted me but we didn’t--”

 

“Mm, yeah, I-- I forgot what I needed to ask you.” Jack lies. 

 

In that grief-mad moment, knowing Dr. Craig had slated him to assist if they ever got the heart, knowing too much, or not enough, or both, it’s not that he had had a plan. It’s not that he had had a question. It’s not that Victor would have had an answer if he did. By the time he spoke with Dr. Craig, there was no more urge to ask about the operation, about the weight of her heart and how well it had gone, he’d felt… not soberer, only filled with other impulses. He’d gone instead to the patient, not to Victor. There were things he couldn’t have asked of Dr. Craig that he might have asked of Victor, but he’d gone to the last living part of her instead.

 

“Well I know Chandler was going to look in on your patient, so… I hope it was that you needed someone to run an errand or, or you needed pasta salad, because I mean--” Victor shrugs, with a helpless sort of smile that Jack almost answers with one of his own.

 

How weird would it be, to ask to hold his hand a minute? A part of him wants to ask all over again. What it had been like, what she had felt like, except he knows the answer is that it felt like a heart, it felt like slick, wet muscle, like any other… that there wasn’t any warmth in an organ that had been on ice for transport, that there wasn’t any magic in it, that there was nothing of _her_ left.

 

“I don’t think that was it, but… thanks.” He says. 

 

“If you remember what you need me for, you can call me. Any time. At the hospital, or at home-- I’m usually not real busy outside of work. And I could get someone to cover for me if it was for you.” He offers, and he’s so eager to please, but it’s so hard to  _ feel _ pleased. Still, it means something. Still, he’s grateful. He’s glad he opened the door and let him in.

 

Pete wakes up, letting out a wail, and that wakes something in Jack up. He hurries to scoop him up, gently shushing him, bouncing him in his arms a little as he checks him over. No new diaper needed, and he calms so quickly he must not be hungry, though he might try him on a bottle if he doesn’t drop back off to sleep. When he looks up from Pete, he sees Victor there, standing nearby.

 

“He’s getting big.” He smiles softly. “Well… I guess the last time I saw him he was...”

 

“Yeah. Yeah, he’s right on track… he’s, uh, he’s doing good.” Jack nods. For all his worries, Pete seems well-adjusted, he’s healthy, he… he seems happy enough as long as he has one parent, maybe that’s enough. It doesn’t feel that way. But the two of them will just have to be enough to get each other through it.

 

“Well, I should, I should go.” Victor says, but he doesn’t sound like he’s over-eager to get out, like he finds the sadness here too oppressive to stand. Just that he ought to get going now that the errand is done and they’ve talked a minute and the baby needs Jack’s focus. “But I meant it, about calling me. For anything! I do windows.”

 

“You do windows?” Jack asks, the statement-- offer?-- startling a laugh out of him. Is he surprised? Victor would jump _out_ of a window if someone asked him to. Why not?  


 

“Sure, I do everything. It’s how I unwind. When I can’t surf.” 

 

“Ehrlich-- Victor. Thanks. Really.” He smiles. He thinks again about asking. Asking if Victor could stay. Asking questions he doesn’t want answers to. Questions there are no answers to.

 

“Oh, don’t thank me, I just-- It’s what people do, I thought.” Victor shrugs, that people-pleaser look on his face. He reaches out, his hand closing on Jack’s shoulder, and in a world where nothing else seems to be, that’s sure and steady and strong. He doesn’t know if it’s true or not, but it’s easy to imagine that Victor’s might have been the last hand to touch her. The real her, the last bit of her left. It’s a weird thing to take comfort in, but he does. Victor’s hand leaves his shoulder, so that he can gently chuck at Pete’s cheek. “I’ll see you, I guess.”

 

“You’ll see us.” He nods, and Victor leans down to pay Pete a little more attention, to tickle under his chin until he laughs... and if Pete will just keep laughing, even just once a day, then Jack can drag himself through this.  


 

“Okay, I’ll see you around, too, then, champ. I, uh, I’ll let myself out. But-- Right, but you can call, if you need something. I’ll be… You can call any time.”

 

“Sure, about those windows.” He jokes, and Victor hesitates on his way out, one hand on the doorknob.

 

“About anything. I mean… that’s what friends are for, right? And that’s-- and we’re-- So, right, about those windows.”

 

“Thanks, Victor.” Jack bounces Pete in his arms a little, taking his hand to help wave goodbye. “Say bye-bye, honey.”

 

“ _Bye-bye_.” Victor says, for Pete alone, smiling at him on his way out.

 

Jack throws in a wave of his own, waits a long minute before going and locking the door after Victor’s departure, Pete still cuddled up happily in his arms.

 

“Come on, buddy, you hungry? You think you could try?”


End file.
